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Pints with Chesterton

Posted February 17, 2024 By John C Wright

Two of my favorite Catholics talking about my favorite Catholic:
Dale Ahlquist and Matt Fradd on G.K. Chesterton

I came to know of GK Chesterton through the writings of CS Lewis, back when I was an atheist and eager to read the battleplans of my enemies, finding their strongest arguments so that I could vanquish them. However, like a comic book mad scientist working with radioactive materials, studying the arts of the enemy may transmogrify into you to the enemy.

And the scales will fall from your eyes. Such is the danger of reading Chesterton.

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The Golden Age Ep. 43 The Consulting Detective

Posted February 14, 2024 By John C Wright

Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. 

In the far future, where humans have become as gods, living lives of perfect peace and prosperity, Phaethon of Rhadamanthus House discovers centuries of his memory are lost. Like his namesake, has flown too high, and must be cast down: for he has committed the one act the Golden Age forbids, to have ambitions higher than utopia can contain. Now his quest is to find himself.

Episode 43: The Consulting Detective

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He Gets Us. He Saves Us.

Posted February 13, 2024 By John C Wright

This is a tale of two ads. One ran during the Superbowl, a venue enjoying the largest viewership in television history. The other ran on Twitter.

One of the ads was dishonest, asking the faithful to betray the faith.

One of the faithful made an honest ad in reply.

One ad was Antichristian. The other, Christian. Alert viewers will spot the difference.

“Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” – 1 Corinthians 6:11

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Tucker Talks to Putin

Posted February 12, 2024 By John C Wright

If you have not seen the interview, it is a remarkable thing to watch, not the least because the interviewer neither interrupts the subject being interviewed, nor argues in favor of the statist-corporate goodthink viewpoint, nor uses the opportunity to display fake virtue. Tucker lets Putin talk.

Putin, on his side, is fell and subtle in his answers, showing the most adroit political rhetoric I have seen in a generation. No lie is outright or direct. No gaslighting. But, like an able mob-lawyer, he is careful to shade the truth, downplaying or omitting whatever does not help his case. He delicately deflects any question it would be impolitic to answer directly.
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About What are You Optimistic?

Posted February 9, 2024 By John C Wright

Sometime circa A.D. 2007, an unsolicited question was sent to me with the mildly ungrammatical title of WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY? I did not recognize the man’s name, nor did he say for what publication, if any, he wished my response.

His somewhat leading question read:

As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put.

What are you optimistic about? Why? Surprise us!

Since this view of science, much less the scientific community, could not be further from the truth, I was at somewhat of a loss.

I wonder if the ever-better questions, ever-better put, now being asked by the ever more powerful tools and techniques of science now include “How Ungoodthink a Shirt was the First Scientist Who Landed a Probe on a Comet-head Wearing?”

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Quote for Black History Month

Posted February 8, 2024 By John C Wright

A Yammerhead on Twitter remarks:

Slavery is white history. How we survived it is black history.

Matt Walsh answers:

Slavery is world history. White people did not invent it, and were not the first to practice it, but were the first to abolish it. The last place in the world to still have legal slavery was Africa. It wasn’t fully legally abolished on the continent until 1981.

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The Golden Age Ep. 42 The Ghost of Diomedes

Posted February 7, 2024 By John C Wright

Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. 

In the far future, where humans have become as gods, living lives of perfect peace and prosperity, Phaethon of Rhadamanthus House discovers centuries of his memory are lost. Like his namesake, has flown too high, and must be cast down: for he has committed the one act the Golden Age forbids, to have ambitions higher than utopia can contain. Now his quest is to find himself.

Episode 42: The Ghost of Diomedes

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Faith and Works in a Science Fictional Universe

Posted February 6, 2024 By John C Wright

From  2014, but perhaps of current interest:

I have been asked to write a brief essay about how my faith informs my work, and what is the general relation of Catholicism to Science Fiction.

Unfortunately, I cannot.

This is not because I have no opinions on the topic, but rather because they cannot be told briefly.

I must give something of my background story to explain how I came by my answers, in order to give the answers fully. I beg the indulgence of the patient reader:

Few men have ever hated as much as Christ as I have, before turning to love him. Before I was a Catholic, I was an atheist, and not an atheist who kept his opinions to himself, but, rather, a vituperative, proselytizing, aggressive, evangelist of atheism, who sought at every opportunity to spread the Bad News that God Was Dead and Christians were Fools.

But there was one area sacrosanct from my proselytizing effort. I did not use my science fiction stories to preach nor promote my worldview.

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Vs Mountains of Madness: S02E03 Problem of Piffle

Posted February 4, 2024 By John C Wright

The next episode of the AGAINST THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is posted.

Here is the substack link to see the episode early

https://open.substack.com/pub/atmom/p/the-problem-of-piffle-2×04?r=eomqh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

And a youtube link

https://youtu.be/G9dn7FAFwNE

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Hoax List

Posted February 4, 2024 By John C Wright

I have maintained a list under the tag “Not Tired of Winning Yet” showing the various campaign promises by Trump made and kept. But I did not keep a list of the various lies, hoaxes, prevarications and gaslighting absurdities perpetrated by the mainstream Project Mockingbird assets known as the Fake News, but by the Men of the West called The Mouth of Sauron.

Fortunately, John Nolte of Breitbart has done my work for me:

 

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Of Mannikins and Men

Posted February 3, 2024 By John C Wright

In his 1962 book  PROFILES OF THE FUTURE Arthur C. Clarke posits the dictum that Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I answer is that Clarke’s Dictum is true only if the man who fails to make the distinction steadfastly ignores what distinguishes technology from magic in the first place, as Clarke, a crass materialist, blatantly does.

Because magic and science are as different as soul and body, as different as as word and meaning, as different as mechanism and aim, Clarke’s Dictum must be rejected as fallacious, if not risible.

As if saying any sufficiently advanced mannikin is indistinguishable from a man. The thing can be said only by someone who refuses to see what makes a man a man and not a mannikin.

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A Question about 2020 Vote Count

Posted February 2, 2024 By John C Wright

Let me ask a question. I have asked several people in various fields, and no one has an answer. 

When the vote count was halted at 3.00 in the morning, PA Trump was up by 682K votes (15.2%); GA 311K (7.5%); MI 207K (9.8%); and WI 128K (4.9%). These are healthy margins. 

Per Politico, Biden allegedly won PA by 2%; GA by 0.2%; MI by 3%; WI by 1%.

These were the only jurisdictions where the vote count was halted. By 7.00 AM next day, five hours later, he had lost all those states.

Leave aside the statistical absurdity involved. My question is this:

  1. Who ordered the vote count halted?
    And let us have the names, please not merely some airy speculation that it was the officers in charge of voting.     
  2. By what legal authority?
    I am an attorney, my wife has worked as a poll worker and supervisor in Virginia elections. No one can quote me a statute or regulation which permits this.     
  3. On what grounds?
    If the vote count was halted in these jurisdictions, and no others, there should be a stated reason for the halt, something true in these places, no where else.
  4. And why does not one news outlet investigate the answer to this question? Not one?
    I used to work as a newspaperman. It should not be a hard story to cover. But no one is.
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Christianity as a Synthetic Religion

Posted February 1, 2024 By John C Wright

In an earlier column I listed the synthetic religions proposed as speculation from science fiction writers from the Pulp Era onward.

Most the writers listed propose some sort of pagan pantheon or another, or worship of a mortal as goddess. Only one proposes using the God of the Christians as a synthetic religion, meant an an opium to lull the masses into a somnolent acquiescence of their own oppression.

Foolishness. No religion on earth is more likely to undermine and overturn society on every level, legal, social, scientific, personal, and improve it markedly, while never drawing the sword nor striking a blow.

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The Golden Age Ep. 41 The College of Hortators

Posted January 31, 2024 By John C Wright

Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. 

In the far future, where humans have become as gods, living lives of perfect peace and prosperity, Phaethon of Rhadamanthus House discovers centuries of his memory are lost. Like his namesake, has flown too high, and must be cast down: for he has committed the one act the Golden Age forbids, to have ambitions higher than utopia can contain. Now his quest is to find himself.

Episode 41: The College of Hortators

This is a particularly nice scene, with guest star appearance from Emphyrio, a Jack Vance character, and Socrates, a Platonic character, both making short speeches. I leave it to the reader to judge whether the homages are in the correct spirit.

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Virtual Orchestra: Heavenly Light 3 & 4

Posted January 30, 2024 By John C Wright

From our own Ben Zwycky:

The fourth track in the Virtual Orchestra: Heavenly Light album, More Than Worthy, addresses this day and age when the pain, isolation and suffering of men is gleefully belittled, and they are sold lives bereft of meaning, lacking any healthy role models, by pointing to Christ as not only a savior, not only a leader worthy of our loyalty, not only a source of wisdom, strength, joy, and purpose, not merely a king who pities our pathetic plight from on high, but a loving friend who understands our pain and loneliness because he has experienced it first-hand. He has bled like us, grieved like us, been betrayed like us, mocked like us, suffered injustice like us, and invites us to become true men living worthwhile, abundant lives.

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